A significant moment in Parliament today: voting to live with Covid

Today, MPs will scrutinise regulations drawing coronavirus restrictions to a close. Considering all that everyone has been through in the last two years, this is a significant moment.

As an MP I’ve focused on supporting constituents with thousands of questions and challenges during the time since the Coronavirus Act was first passed, as emergency legislation at the outset of the pandemic. The law, and our lives, changed rapidly, and have continued to do so.

People have made sacrifices, and my thoughts in particular are with those who’ve lost loved ones during the pandemic. Many others experienced hard demands in their family lives or workplaces. I hope that these things can be commemorated appropriately, nationally and locally.

It’s time to look to the future now. The government have proposed a plan for living with Covid, which will take us forward while emphasising public health advice and continuing to protect the vulnerable.

The Living with Covid plan is based around four principles:

• Living with Covid - removing all remaining domestic restrictions, while encouraging safer behaviours through public health advice
• Protecting people most vulnerable - targeted vaccination, treatment, and testing
• Maintaining Resilience - ongoing surveillance and contingency planning
• Securing innovations and opportunities from the Covid-19 response – including investment in life sciences

The Government’s objective in the next phase of the Covid-19 response is to enable the country to manage Covid-19 like other respiratory illnesses, while minimising mortality and retaining the ability to respond if a new variant emerges with more dangerous properties than the Omicron variant, or during periods of waning immunity, that could again threaten to place the NHS under unsustainable pressure.

It’s important to reflect on the phenomenal hard work and innovation that happened in response to the emergency. In particular, our country has led the way in vaccinations and boosters. Because of this, we have good individual and collective protection against severe illness, hospitalisation and death.

And because of that progress, we should not rely any longer on emergency legislation that restricts lives. I am supporting these measures in Parliament today because the Coronavirus Act bans and obligations should not apply for any longer than they were needed. It is important to learn to live with this virus and continue protecting ourselves, while returning to the normal, free, and prosperous life that constituents want.